"Smells Like Teen Spirit" Named the Most Iconic Song Ever by Science

It’s official: rock and roll is dead. The last artifice of cool has collapsed, and capitalism has Jimi Hendrix’s head on a stick. Fiat commissioned a scientist to find the most iconic song of all time so that they could use it in commercials to sell the FIAT 500.

The Daily Mirror reports that Dr. Mick Grierson, from Goldsmiths, University of London, named Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” the winner after examining 50 songs that most often appeared on all-time lists by the likes of Rolling Stone, VH1, NME and Q magazine, along with others. Or, you could say that this Nirvana classic is the loser, considering that now it will be covered for a Fiat commercial.

After making the list, Dr. Grierson then studied the 50 tracks looking at their key, the number of beats per minute, chord variety, lyrical content, timbral variety and sonic variance.